Solving Problems

In order to solve a problem you first have to have a problem.

This may seem pretty obvious, but there is a lot of time wasted trying to solve things which aren't actually problems.

Take voter fraud.

There is no real evidence that it is a problem.

In fact the studies all show pretty conclusively that it isn't.  There is evidence that some registrations are incorrect which are easily explained by three things, people die, they move and ID theft.

However dead people, people registered in multiple states and people who are stealing identities are not voting.  It is simply the fact that this is done by states and we don't have a simple way to update deaths and people moving.

Its popular because it allows certain laws that suppress certain legal voters.

Another non-problem is the erosion of white privilege.  First, there is no actual right to white privilege and second its not being eroded because other people are gaining rights.

You see people using other phony issue, such as having to select English as your language when you call a help center.  How is that a problem?  It helps some people get help.

Other phony problems include thing like disrespect o the flag or not saying the pledge of allegiance in schools or even the fact that the newest generation is not doing what they should (a very ancient complaint (btw).  These are not real problems.

Real problems do exist but they can't be solved if not understood.

Poverty in the world is a problem.  Violence in the streets is a problem.  Failure to provide our citizens good health care or education is a problem.  The number of people we incarcerate is a problem.

There are of course more problems that need to understood and solved.  Time spent chasing illusionary ones helps no one.

Roman Republic

We tend to think of the Roman Empire when we think of Rome but Rome was a Republic for more of its history than it was an Empire.

From its founding to shortly before the start of the Christian era it was primarily a Republic but there are sources that discuss this.
 https://www.britannica.com/place/Roman-Republic

It also should be noted that it was during this period that most of the expansion took place.

The Republic persisted for about 500 years before it became an empire.  It eventually gave way to the prestige of military leaders who maintained the vestiges of the Republic but used force and brute force to silence any opposition.

Now Rome had achieved great things and by the time it became an Empire it totally dominated the Mediterranean world.

The Republic didn't fall because it was conquered or destroyed by external forces, more that it became factional and that instead of pursuing a common good, it devolved into groups intent on winning.

Now it was never idyllic, no place is, but it did have strong Republican traditions and gave the people a voice in the decisions of the state.

Now the problems of the Republic consisted of high taxes, collected unfairly, high crime and political corruption which led to the popularity of Julius Caesar who promised effectively to solve the problems and restore the glory of the Republic.

His popularity and flaunting of certain traditions led to his assassination and the end of the Republic.

Now this is history and its important to pay attention to it.

We don't want to repeat it.

Economic Reality

By any objective measure most Americans are doing pretty well in today's economy.  They could of course be doing better, but considering how everything almost collapsed during the financial crisis we should be at least a little thankful.

Now while this is going on we are in the midst of a number of social economic changes that impact certain people more than others.  The country has been moving to a service economy for quite a few years now.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but any change like that has winners and losers.

If you are in the group that doesn't have the right skills to succeed in the new reality, you may get bitter.  You want to blame somebody.  Its no comfort to be told that you are an unfortunate victim of a global phenomenon that ultimately benefits the great majority with more efficient economies.

Losing a high paying manufacturing job and having to work in a lower paying service job is clearly not a good experience and might make you feel that the economy has collapsed.  Well your economy has collapsed because of two factors.  Globalization and training.

If you have the right skills for the current economy you can do very well.  If you don't you won't.  Of course this is no different than manufacturing with the biggest difference being that those displaced form good paying manufacturing jobs are not ready to take entry level service jobs.

Well the jobs are not coming back and if you expect the Government to fix this you are clearly looking for a handout.  Its not the Governments fault or the Governments responsibility to fix it, anymore than it ever was.

The jobs left because the business owners determined it was more profitable to automate and use the cheaper labor available in foreign countries.  Purely an economic decision and an outgrowth of our capitalistic system.  Yes, trade agreements facilitated some of this but the trade agreements were not the cause.  The price differential is normally so great that the jobs were going anyway.  Further these products are sold globally so having import duties increases the cost to us and makes our products and services harder to sell.  

Its not nice being the victim is an economic or social transformation, but the forces at work are not going to go away or reverse themselves.

American Value - Fairness

Generally most people I know have a certain sense of what they think is fair.  This is a value that is taught us to us at an early age.  We like to think that we treat others fairly and would want to be treated fairly by others.

The point is that fairness is something that doesn't actually exist in the natural world. Animals hunting for food don't care about being fair.

There is also no fairness on the battlefield.  Ultimately when people are trying to kill each other neither one is willing to die for fairness.  The best tactic is to apply overwhelming force using the element of surprise.

This carries forward to the business world.  Here of course some fairness is imposed by outside forces, but remove that and we would see true ruthlessness.

Fairness only exists where it is imposed by an authority, parents, referees and umpires, and Government agencies.  Even then it is only at best unequally imposed.  From the day of our birth some are fortunate, living in comfortable homes, going to good schools and having a support network while others are raised in substandard conditions, eating irregularly and going to sub par schools.

A recent study showed that the best indicator of what are adult status would be is the status of our parents.  Yes some overcome their humble beginnings and some descend the social ladder, but these are by no means the norms and require some extraordinary motivation or talent.

We pretend opportunity exists for all and point to the few success stories as examples, but statistically the number that overcome there beginnings is not the norm, it is the rare exception.

This is such an ingrained issue in our society that I'm not sure it is solvable in the conventional sense, but I do know that ignoring it is not the answer.

Reality

I talked about promises and empty promises in my last post and while we live in a world where information is at everyone's fingertips it sometimes seems that we don't have a clear grasp of reality, or at least many of us don't.

Now, reality is not a relative thing, meaning its the same for everybody even if we feel differently about it.  For example, getting shot if a real event.  How it happened and who's at fault is another matter but even so there is a real sequence of events that can be determined.   In fact our criminal justice system relies on us being able to determine that beyond a reasonable doubt. Obviously its not always possible but ultimately whether we find it or not, it is there.

Reality takes a back seat all too often to political and social motivations.  For example, relatively modest proposals to do additional background checks related to the purchase of assault weapons immediately becomes an effort to take all guns away.  A couple of immigrants commit crimes and all immigrants are criminals. There is the reality and then there is the exaggeration.  This is so insidious there are times we don't even need a reality to have the exaggeration.

Look at the birther "controversy" that we had and to some extent still have about Obama's birthplace.  It had no basis in reality but the exaggeration took on a life of its own.  We always had rumors and misinformation, it just seems we have  so much more nowadays, maybe because of social media and irresponsible journalism.

Sadly I do believe that the majority of Americans share certain common values and beliefs.  However its hard to see that in the phony realities that exist.

Direction

All politics are local is a pretty famous truism.  The logic behind this is that voters are always aware of things that actually impact them and are, like most humans, pretty sure their experience is the most valid experience.  So as I discussed the other day, you may have a single issue that you believe has to be fixed above all else (abortion, jobs, taxes, housing) because it has a direct impact on you (physically or emotionally). To the extent the electorate is experiencing the same things they will tend to vote the same.  So in a farm district issues important to farmers will often dominate and since those districts tend to be church going, god fearing districts they even agree for the most part on social issues.  Since the people who grow up in those districts with contrary life styles or beliefs are likely to move away it is self perpetuating.   Similarly in a urban center with diverse populations, life styles, opportunities and beliefs, we are likely to have a completely different outcome in an election.  You can predict the majority of congressional districts pretty reliably, at least when it comes to national elections.

Now I have found that most Americans except the general idea that America has shared values.  However, what they think those shared values are is somewhat different, if not at the top level then in the way to achieve it.  For example, look at National Defense.  You can support it by wanting to be involved globally combating threats in the places they originate while trying to internationalize the concepts in our constitution or you can say keep our troops and money home, build a defense that no one will ever try to attack and let the rest of the world take care of itself.  Both of those positions support a strong defense with probably the only common ground being a strong military.

Issue after issue follows the same pattern, a strong economy, education, immigration, health care, etc. etc.  There is no way to really prove what works better, although there are plenty of examples, they are either inconclusive or they weren't implemented fully.  Take international trade agreements.  They are supposed to improve the overall world economy thereby lifting each nations economy in the process.  However, while that may be true it does it by making the global economy more efficient.  So if it is more efficient to do manual labor (manufacturing) in a foreign country while providing complex services here, it leads to many displaced workers who have antiquated skill sets.  Yes goods get cheaper overall and maybe the total number of jobs is the same or better but the nature of those jobs is different and the impacted individuals are the victims.

This is not the first time we've had an experience like this, and it will work itself out over time, but a displaced factory worker who is making half of what he/she used to and who sees the products they used to make with a made in someplace else label on them feels betrayed.  They worked hard, made good products and the company they worked for was profitable, so what happened?

Well what happened is the management of the company needed to stay competitive and to stay competitive they had to relocate production.  As famously said in well known movies, it's just business.

Of course this seems like something that can be reversed, if things could just go back to the way they were.

More to follow.

BIG problems, small solutions

There is a simple theory, or maybe its best called an observation about how things change. Usually people look at a problem, say global warming, and feel that the problem is insurmountable. The problem is large, involves multiple aspects, many countries around the world and the search for a solution just seems so difficult.

Now it doesn't matter for this discussion if you believe that global warming is a real issue or not, but lets just assume that it is. It will be solved and it will be solved faster than the experts think. The reason is that there will be a tipping point.

When people look at a problem like this you see the trends and the massive amounts of CO2 being generated and start to look at the BIG solutions. BIG solutions are hard. I doubt very much we will find one. However, the problem will be solved because as people become convinced it is a real problem, or just because oil is so expensive, they will start to modify their behavior.

Each individual modification is by itself insignificant, but as they start to multiply and add up, they will reduce emissions past the point necessary to start stabilizing the environment. Of course, concerning global warming we will also have some help from Mother Nature as more CO2 consuming plants will thrive.

Now how can I be so sure of this? Mainly because while theoreticians ponder, most people act and they act in their own best interest. Energy has gotten expensive. Also, people are starting to believe that they are causing problems for their children. So for both economic reasons and family reasons they will improve their carbon footprint. Also, as more people do it, it will become the thing to do.

The same phenomena relates to Oil demand. We had an oil shock in the 1970s but the actions we took back then to reduce oil consumption were defeated by the reintroduction of cheap oil and a political environment that didn't support conservation or renewable energy. We have now had another oil shock and further the oil shock sent us into a recession that scared the hell out of a lot of people. We are seeing signs of recovery and we have elected a more environmentally friendly Government. However, people are going to reduce their need for oil. They will want fuel efficient cars, more fuel efficient houses and will start to insist that products they buy are environmentally friendly. Not not everyone will do this, but where it was just a fringe group a few years ago, the numbers are growing and I believe they will continue to grow.

Additionally, the administration will promote energy conservation and whatever you may think about certain programs, it will become more profitable for industry to reduce energy consumption. So as all this happens demand for oil in this country will stay depressed. It may grow some as we expand after the recession, but it will not return to its former levels. Further, this is a worldwide phenomena.

Most BIG problems and not solved by BIG solutions but rather are solved by a series of rather small actions taken by many different individuals and businesses acting in their own best interest. Yes, sometimes the reason certain actions are in their own best interest is because of the tax code or perhaps social pressure, but it is not a BIG solution.